The following
passages are quotations of Mother Teresa from the book "No Greater Love,"
edited by Becky Benenate and Joseph Durepos.

On Jesus Christ
(78-90)

Jesus is
the truth that must be shared.

— MOTHER
TERESA

Very truly,
I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do, in
fact, will do greater works than these. If in my name you ask for anything, I
will do it.

— JESUS, JOHN
14:12—14 RSV

1. There is a story of a little
robin. He saw Jesus on the cross, saw the crown of thorns. The bird flew around
and around until he found a way to remove a thorn, and in removing the thorn
stuck himself.

Each one of us
should be that bird. What have I done? What comfort have I given? Does my work
really mean something? The little robin tried to remove just one thorn. When I
look at the cross, I think of that robin. Don’t pass by the cross; it is a place
of grace.

We often
look without seeing. Am I able to see the poor and suffering? All of us have to
carry our own cross, all of us have to accompany Jesus in His ascent to Calvary
if we want to reach the summit with Him. Sacrifice, in order to be genuine, has
to empty us of ourselves. Jesus has chosen each
one of us to be His love and His light in the world.

Remember, He
has chosen us; we have not first chosen Him. We must respond by making something
beautiful for God---something very beautiful. For this we must give our all, our
utmost. We must cling to Jesus, grasp Him, have a grip on Him, and never let go
for anything. We must fall in love with Jesus.

2. By my vow of chastity, I not only
renounce the married state of life, but I also consecrate to God the free use of
my internal and external acts, my affections. I cannot in conscience love
another with the love of a woman for a man. I no longer have the right to give
that affection to any other creature but only to God.

What, then?
Do we have to be stones, human beings without hearts? Do we simply say, “I don’t
care; to me all human beings are the same”? No, not at all. We have to keep
ourselves as we are, but keep it all for God, to whom we have consecrated all
our external and internal acts.

3. Chastity does not simply mean that I
am not married. It means that I love Christ with an undivided love. It is
something deeper, something living, something real. It is to love Him with
undivided, loving chastity through the freedom of poverty.

The words of
Jesus, “Love one another as I have loved you,” (John 15:12 RSV) must be not only
a light for us but a flame that consumes the self in us. Love, in order to
survive, must be nourished by sacrifices, especially the sacrifice of self.
Renouncing means to offer my free will, my reason, my life, in an attitude of
faith. My soul can be in darkness; trials are the surest tests of my blind
renunciation. Renunciation also means love. The more we renounce, the more we
love God and man.

4. Am I convinced of Christ’s love for
me and mine for Him? This conviction is like a sunlight that makes the sap of
life rise and the buds of sanctity bloom. This conviction is the rock on which
sanctity is built. What must we do to get this conviction? We must know
Jesus, love Jesus, serve Jesus. We know Him through prayers, meditations, and
spiritual duties. We love Him through Holy Mass and the sacraments and through
that intimate union of love. We must endeavor to live alone with Him in the
sanctuary of our inmost heart.

In his passion
our Lord says, “Thy will be done. Do with me what you want.” And that was the
hardest thing for our Lord even at the last moment. They say that the passion
in Gethsemane was much greater than even the crucifixion. Because it was His
heart, His soul that was being crucified, while on the cross, it was His body
that was crucified. And the only way that we know that it was so difficult for
Him that hour is that He asked, “Why could you not spend one hour with me?” We
know He needed consolation. This is total surrender---not to be loved by
anybody, not to be wanted by anybody, just to be a nobody because we have given
all to Christ.

5. When Jesus came into the world, He
loved it so much that He gave His life for it. He wanted to satisfy our hunger
for God. And what did He do? He made Himself the Bread of Life. He became small,
fragile and defenseless for us. Bits of bread can be so small that even a baby
can chew it, even a dying person can eat it. He became the Bread of Life to
satisfy our hunger for God, our hunger for love.

I don’t think
we could have ever loved God if Jesus had not become one of us. So that we might
be able to love God, He became one of us in all things, except sin. If we
have been created in the image of God, then we have been created to love,
because God is love. In his passion Jesus taught us how to forgive out of love,
how to forget out of humility. Find Jesus, and you will find peace.

6. Don’t allow anything to interfere
with your love for Jesus. You belong to Him. Nothing can separate you from
Him. That one sentence is important to remember. He will be your joy, your
strength. If you hold onto that sentence, temptations and difficulties will
come, but nothing will break you. Remember, you have been created for great
things.

You must
not be afraid to say “Yes” to Jesus, because there is no greater love than His
love and no greater joy than His joy. My prayer
for you is that you come to understand and have the courage to answer Jesus’
call to you with the simple word, “Yes.” Why has He chosen you? Why me? This
is a mystery.

Christ said,
“I was hungry and you gave me food,” He was hungry not only for bread but for
the understanding love of being loved, of being known, of being someone to
someone. He was naked not only of clothing but of human dignity and of
respect, through the injustice that is done to the poor, who are looked down
upon simply because they are poor. He was dispossessed not only of a house
made of bricks but because of the dispossession of those who are locked up, of
those who are unwanted and unloved, of those who walk through the world with no
one to care for them.

You may go out
into the street and have nothing to say, but maybe there is a man standing there
on the corner and you go to him. Maybe he resents you, but you are there, and
that presence is there. You must radiate that presence that is within you, in
the way you address that man with love and respect. Why? Because you believe
that is Jesus.Jesus cannot receive you — for this, you must know how to
go to Him. He comes disguised in the form of that person there. Jesus, in the
least of His brethren, is not only hungry for a piece of bread, but hungry for
love, to be known, to be taken into account.

7. What is my spiritual life? A love
union with Jesus in which the divine and the human give them selves completely
to one another. All that Jesus asks of me is to give myself to Him in all my
poverty and nothingness.

Jesus said,
“Learn of me.” In our meditations we should always say, “Jesus, make me a
saint according to your own heart, meek and humble.” We must respond in the
spirit in which Jesus meant us to respond. We know Him better through
meditations, and the study of the gospel, but have we really understood Him in
His humility?

One thing
Jesus asks of me: that I lean on Him; that in Him and only in Him I put complete
trust; that I surrender myself to Him unreservedly. Even when all goes wrong and
I feel as if I am a ship without a compass, I must give myself completely to
Him. I must not attempt to control God’s action; I must not count the stages
in the journey He would have me make. I must not desire a clear perception of my
advance upon the road, must not know precisely where I am upon the way of
holiness. I ask Him to make a saint of me, yet I must leave to Him the choice of
the saintliness itself and still more the means that lead to it.

8. Hungry for love, He looks at you.

Thirsty for
kindness, He begs from you.

Naked for
loyalty, He hopes in you.

Sick and
imprisoned for friendship, He wants from you.

Homeless for
shelter in your heart, He asks of you.

Will you be
that one to Him?

9. The simplicity of our life of
contemplation makes us see the face of God in everything, everyone, and
everywhere, all the time. His hand in all happenings makes us do all that we
do---whether we think, study, work, speak, eat, or take our rest---in Jesus,
with Jesus, for Jesus and to Jesus, under the loving gaze of the Father, being
totally available to Him in any form He may come to us.

I am deeply
impressed by the fact that before explaining the Word of God, before presenting
to the crowds the eight beatitudes, Jesus had compassion on them and gave them
food. Only then did He begin to teach them.

Love Jesus
generously. Love him trustfully, without looking back and without fear. Give
yourself fully to Jesus. He will use you to accomplish great things on the
condition that you believe much more in His love than in your weakness.
Believe in Him, trust in Him with a blind and absolute confidence because He is
Jesus. Believe that Jesus and Jesus alone is life, and sanctity is nothing but
that same Jesus intimately living in you; then His hand will be free with you.

10. Who is Jesus to me?

Jesus is the
Word made flesh.

Jesus is the
Bread of Life.

Jesus is the Victim offered for our sins on the cross.

Jesus is the sacrifice offered at holy Mass for the sins of
the world and for mine.

Jesus is the
Word to be spoken.

Jesus is the
truth to be told.

Jesus is the
way to be walked.

Jesus is the
light to be lit.

Jesus is the
life to be lived,

Jesus is the
love to be loved.

Jesus is the
joy to be shared.

Jesus is the
peace to be given.

Jesus is the
hungry to be fed.

Jesus is the
thirsty to be satiated,

Jesus is the
naked to be clothed.

Jesus is the
homeless to be taken in,

Jesus is the
sick to be healed,

Jesus is the
lonely to be loved.

Jesus is the
unwanted to be wanted,

Jesus is the
leper to wash His wounds.

Jesus is the
beggar to give Him a smile,

Jesus is the
drunkard to listen to Him.

Jesus is the
mentally ill to protect Him,

Jesus is the
little one to embrace Him,

Jesus is the
blind to lead Him.

Jesus is the dumb to speak for Him.

Jesus is the crippled to walk with Him.

Jesus is the
drug addict to befriend Him.

Jesus is the
prostitute to remove from danger and befriend Her.

Jesus is the
prisoner to be visited.

Jesus is the
old to be served,

To me: Jesus
is my God.

Jesus is my
spouse.

Jesus is my
life.

Jesus is my
only love.

Jesus is my
all in all.

Jesus is my
everything.

11. JESUS, I love with my whole heart,
with my whole being. I have given Him all, even my sins, and He has espoused me
to Himself in all tenderness and love.

I am no
longer my own. Whether I live or whether I die, I belong to my Saviour. I have
nothing of my own. God is my all, and my whole being is His.

I will have
nothing to do with a love that would be for God or in God. I cannot bear the
word for or the word in, because they denote something that may be in between
God and me.

— SAINT
CATHERINE OF GENOA

As the
Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my
commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s
commandments and abide in His love. I have said these things so that my joy may
be in you, and that your joy may be complete.